Celestial Warrior Moon is a Darker and EdgierAlternate UniverseFanfic of Sailor Moon. So needless to say, it is very, very different from both the manga and anime, approaching the story from a completely different angle. The story includes several OCs, though they've been strictly regulated into the supporting cast so as not to take any of the limelight off the main characters. The author has changed how transformations and powers work, and has even gone as far as to introduce the Sailor Senshi/Scouts out of order just to shake things up. The villains and monsters have been made much more menacing and dangerous, leading to much more intense violence during fight scenes.

While it follows the same basic outline of the original story, the main characters instead transform into armored Ladies of War, armed with swords, bows and arrows, and other such weapons instead of Princess Classic-style magical girls who wear sailor fukos and tiaras. The roles of Luna and Artemis have also been changed considerably. In this fic, they're members of a secret organization called The Keepers, which is made up of descendants of the Moon Kingdom's royal court. They basically play the role of The Men in Black.

Clumsy, lazy, underachieving 14-year-old crybaby schoolgirl Usagi has her whole world flip-turned upside down one fateful day while studying at a friend's house. They're attacked by TheRake (yes, really). As she flees through the streets, a cat she encounters turns into a full grown woman and saves her by giving her the power of the Celestial Warriors to defend herself from the beast. Now it's her task to protect planet Earth against the forces of evil responsible for the attack. This cat-lady, Luna, tells her that she is predestined to be a magical warrior who must find the reincarnated princess of the lost magical Moon Kingdom to restore peace and harmony to the world, else it covered in an eternal age of darkness. First, though, she must gain allies in the form of other reincarnated warriors. Second, learn how to be their leader, and then finally discover the secret within herself to save the world. She must find the courage to confront the evil masterminds, The Dark Kingdom, perhaps even sacrificing everything along the way.

Adaptational Badass: Tuxedo Mask, who has been made into Phantom Mask, a Batman-like figure that wields a sword and gets into the thick of things and manages to hold his own. He's thrown no roses and made no cheesy one-liners here.

Usagi and the other girls count, too. The nature of their powers makes getting up, close, and personal with their opponents necessary, so the fighting is a lot more intense.

Adult Fear: What else did you expect when the story features the freaking Rake.

To explain that, in the early chapters, he enters Naru's house and enacts his usual M.O. by skulking around her neighborhood, lying in wait for the right moment to attack.

Alternate Continuity: The fic bares only a passing resemblance to both the anime and the manga, but used influences from both of them. It's setting itself up to develop in a direction divergent from both.

Well, more a case of Bigger Bad concerning The Entity, it also having a Bigger Bad above it in Chaos.

Body and Host: Anyone that's been infected by The Rake can become it's new host.

Body Horror: The Rake can regenerate itself by taking over the corpse of his victims and reshaping them into himself. Meep!

That's to say nothing of poor Crane Game Joe when the youma sleeping inside him is awakened. The slow, horrible transformation seems to imply that the insect-like monster grew and 'burst out from inside him!

Bloodier and Gorier: The monsters in ths fic are very violent and very brutal. Gone are the energy-sucking cute monster girls. In their place are creatures like The Rake.

Breather Episode: One of the things the author does commonly between chapters focusing on the plot and battling monsters is include one that just focuses on the daily lives of the girls while setting up the next encounter.

Crash-Into Hello: Usagi to Mamoru in the first chapter. She hopped a fence and jumped right into him as he was passing by. Ouch.

Creepy Child: In scenic Lightless City (a location within The Land of Black Leaves), there are the Eyeless Children. Give them one of your eyes, and they'll stricken someone else blind for you. Refuse payment, and they'll just hunt you down until you give up both.

Creepypasta: This is where the author is pulling from for a good chunk of the monsters, which so far have included The Rake, The Pocket (renamed The Face Taker), The Bleeding Tree, The Old Man and the Eyeless Children from The Lightless City, and more.

There have also been a lot of allusions to The Slender Man, but that particular pasta monster has yet to appear. In all likelihood,it's all build-up to his inevitable appearance.

Dark World: Three so far. The Land of Black Leaves, Niflheim, and The Beldam's lair.

Darker and Edgier: This fic inserts beasts from classic myths and legends and Creepypasta monsters in all their glory for the heroines to fight. This much should go without saying.

The Determinator: Usagi, full stop. Though showing a lot of signs of being traumatized and beginning to become depressed over her circumstances, she still isn't giving up the fight and has soldiered through every obstacle standing in her way.

Die or Fly: Does Awakening just in time not to be ripped to shreds by The Rake after witnessing it murder at least one person and then beat the crap out of all your friends before mercilessly chasing you down the streets of Tokyo in the dead of night count?

Doorstopper: Over 250,000 words, 28 chapters, with each chapter being about 10,000 words long, and counting!

Fangirl: Makoto is a HUGE Sailor V fan in this fanfic. She even has a poster of her on her wall at home.

Fanon: In-Universe example. Chapter 27 reveals that Natsuna Sakurada, the Police Superintendent from Codename: Sailor V is the older sister of Miss Haruna, Usagi's homeroom teacher. Them being sisters has long been a common fan theory among Moonies for years. The author apparently decided to roll with it.

Foreshadowing: Just look at the Shout-Out section below. The author couldn't be making it more obvious that Slender Man is going to be making an appearance if he tried.

Also, all of the Shitennou have been introduced, as well as the Seven Great Youma, though the latter hasn't been awakened yet.

Not only that, but the author has taken steps to foreshadow just about every major upcoming plot point. Numerous elements that won't come into play until much later have already been mentioned and built up. We've seen Nephrite and his crew working on the black crystal which will be used to awaken The Seven Great Youma, for instance.

The Death Busters have also been vaguely alluded to in Chapter 25 by Myddin.

Good Is Not Nice: Pious, the Keeper of the Records. One of the High Keepers, he is a very abrasive and confrontational individual who is very critical of every mistake Usagi and the others makes. Of course, when you consider how much is on the line, this becomes somewhat justified. Thus far, he's also been one of the more competent of the Keepers. To quote the author (with permission): "I can understand why most of my readers won't like Pious. He's a jerk, but he's also a competent jerk."

The Dark Agency and Phantom Ace, both from the Sailor V manga have been mentioned.

Hero Secret Service: And this time they actually have an actual secret service with thousands of agents keeping an eye on things worldwide known as The Keepers.

Historical Badass Upgrade: This story somehow manages to do this for England's Elizabeth II, who frankly doesn't need the help. As this fic tells it, she was a high ranking Keeper who apparently spearheaded several important operations to save the world, and saved the underwater city of Atlantis from The Dark Kingdom by having a Keeper-manned submarine launched.

Human Resources: Played a lot more darkly than "The Dark Kingdom tries to suck human energy", though that does happen, too. Usually it's more along the lines of sucking the life energy out of humans that have just been horribly mutilated beyond repair.

And now Rei's father, Takashi Hino has started to appear within the story, as an arrogant politician of questionable ethics.

Invisible to Normals: Not in the sense that no one recognizes the girls as the Warriors, but in the sense that there's a whole second fantasy world always lying just around the corner of every day life that humans have trained themselves not to see.

The girls ALL wear masks in this fic.

Jerkass and Jerkass Has a Point: Pious. He is abrasive, unflinching, unfriendly, domineering, critical, shrewd, and calculating. He believes that the Warriors are too frivolous and frankly not ready for to properly fulfill their duties, and...given how many near misses the Warriors have suffered thanks to either lack of experience or caution, it's kinda hard to argue his point.

However difficult he may be to get along with, he does his job well. With him in charge of investigating Jadeite and Nephrite's energy drain victims, the Keepers have successfully zeroed in on how they are being targeted. Word of God confirms that he is supposed to be an unpleasant, but competent individual, so this also crosses into Good Is Not Nice.

Lady of War: The girls transform into a armor-clad warriors more akin to this.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Memory Rewriting, as it's called here. The Keepers do this whenever someone out of the loop has seen too much.

Mad Artist: Chapter 16 reveals that one of the monsters, The Beldam, created elaborate sculptures out of the remains of her victims, resulting in a catacombs with walls made up of clay and human bones as well as chandeliers and a the sculpture of a dragon.

Mad Scientist Laboratory: Nephrite's lab, which is located underground and can be access through an abandoned silo which The Face Taker guards.

The Masquerade: The Keepers have impose this on the secondary world of creatures, monsters, and other mythological beings. It's explicably stated in the backstory that part of the main reason mankind was being held back from progress was because they spent most of their days cowering in fear of monsters or were fighting them off.

Broken Masquerade: At least partially as of Chapter 18: The Ball. The fact that monsters do exist has been exposed to the public at large, and the whole thing's been gradually more and more exposed with each passing chapter ever since.

Monster of the Week: Yep, but with a twist. Not all the monsters have been killed after their encounter with the Warriors (one was even let go and another came back for more). In fact, one thing the author seems to be trying to avoid is having meaningless monsters of the week.

Mood Whiplash: Oh, man. This fic lashes back and forth from the silly light-hearted nature of the Sailor Moon anime into the levels of darkness that'd make Elfen Lied give a silent nod of approval. And it does so often enough that's probably broken a few necks by now.

My Greatest Failure: It's a little early to tell, but it appears that Usagi views Crane Game Joe's death and Entomon's subsequent escape as this.

Also, Makoto considers the entire past year to be this. Apparently she fell in with the wrong crowd, started doing drugs, physically assaulted at least one close friend, and disappointed her senpai, as well as going through four schools in that time frame.

Noodle Incident: A few. Apparently, The Dark Kingdom laid siege to Atlantis, which is a living underwater city in this setting, with some kind of ship which was downed by a Keeper-manned submarine. Oh, and Elizabeth II (back when she was a high ranking Keeper prior to becoming Queen of England) spearheaded the operation.

And this next one crosses with The Great Off Screen War. Something called The Underground War occurred shortly after Elizabeth II retired from The Keepers in order to become Queen. All we know is that the Keepers fought in it, and it's been outright stated to have been a hellish ordeal by Luna.

Not Using the Z Word: Averted. Each and every monster has been quickly identified by name and species.

Shout-Out: In keeping with the inclusion of modern creepypasta beasts, the author has included one hell of a Shout-Out to The Slender Man Mythos with the introduction of an Eldritch Location called The Land of Black Leaves, which is ruled by an entity known as The Black King. A similarly named alternate dimension known as The Path of Black Leaves first appeared on the slenderblog, White Elephants as Slendy's lair. More on The Path of Black Leaveshere, but this story doesn't portray it quite the same as the original did.

Don't forget Usagi coming across the letter addressed to Linnie from the original Rake creepypastaand Linnie's reply from Everyman Hybrid. She also stumbles across cases files of Dr. Corenthal, also of Everyman Hybrid fame.

Another Luna example: At one point, she uses the alias 'Kagome Takahashi', which is an obvious shout out to InuYasha. Kagome is the given name of the main heroine and Takahashi is the surname of the series author, Rumiko Takahashi.

In an early chapter, Kuroi, Hanako, Shiroi, and Akai from the live-action series's Act Zero are police officers maintaining a police barricade. In the live-action series, they were all minor characters that were inexplicably played by the same actors as the Shitennou.

Chapter 17 has a scene where Myddin smokes some pipe weed. Old Tobey, to be exact. Hobbits are also name-dropped.

In Chapter 18, Usagi, while in England waiting for a ball at Buckingham Palace to start, watches TV and flips stations from Monty Python's Flying Circus to Doctor Who and finally to Blackadder before just giving up due to language barriers.

In Chapter 23: Blunder and Lightning, Zoicite unleashes a horde of creatures called Wood Trolls, which are made out of dirt and wood and powered by strange coccoons implanted into them. The description of the trolls and their behavior (trying to drag people underground) is reminiscent of the Doctor Who audiobook Day of the Troll.

Chapter 25: An Uneasy Quiet, a college student named Jenn Brauer is attacked by a masked man working for Slenderman. He tries to abduct her in much the same fashion as Masky from Marble Hornets and even acts animalistically like your typical slenderproxy.

Chapter 41: Echoes of the Past, Setsuna finally makes an appearance, though this time she's less of the Stoic, and takes more after The Eleventh Doctor.

Slender Man: Officially made his first appearance in Chapter 20, in Germany, the place said to be his place of origin, no less.

Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Thus far, Celestial Warrior Moon has been a much, much darker take on the franchise, but the author has not made his intentions concerning the End Game known yet, so it could go either direction at this point.

Small Role, Big Impact: The Rake. Though only present in the first few chapters, The Rake is instrumental in setting the tone for both the story and all the villains that would follow after him. Through him, the author also introduced the story's heavy horror elements, the first of the multitude of dark worlds that exist in the setting, and lays down the first bits of Foreshadowing for the Slender Man's eventual appearance.

Starter Villain: TheRake. Chapters 1-5 are basically a little mini-arc within the story where the famed creepypasta monster plays the role of main villain.

Zoicite, starting at Chapter 6. Yes, really, but not a straight example. While it's true that Zoicite takes Jadeite's place as the first primary Shitennou to go up against Usagi and her Warriors, it comes with a twist. He's acting as a distraction for Jadeite and Nephrite. While he keeps the Warriors busy, they gather energy from humans to feed The Entity.

Also diverging from the norm, Zoicite survived the events of the doom bus, which was where Jadeite died in the manga and where Zoicite suffers his first true defeat in this fic. However, he was merely badly injured and taken out of commission for a while. Nephrite temperarily takes over his duties while he recovers.

Now Zoicite's back as of Chapter 18. It seems like the first three Shitennou are all lobbying to play this role.

Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Played straight initially, but the fic is shaping up to subvert this with the latest development concerning a monster that's killed some civilians in the U.S.

It also looks like the plot of Chapter 4 of the manga/episode 22 of the anime, which involves the Senshi and the villains both attending a masquerade ball to get their hands on a jewel which might be the Silver Crystal ( it's not), will be taking place in Buckingham Palace, London, England.

Now the story's gearing up to go to Germany...and Cleveland, Ohio.

Urban Legend: There actually is a silo on Shoe-Factory Road in Barrington, Illinois that's said to be haunted, where chapters 11 and 12 are set. Though, it's not guarded by The Face Taker in real life.

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